The intricacy of the painting is staggering; the craft itself carries a 95 foot wing span.

Nunca’s transformation of a DC3 is among the most striking of the painted aircraft—the plane itself adopts the markings of an eagle, carrying men alongside it presenting a fantastical, romantic and yet mildly terrifying vision of flight. The intricacy of the painting is staggering; the craft itself carries a 95 foot wing span—and yet individual feathers along the carriage of the plane are painted in meticulous detail.

Many of the artists worked within the specific identity of the crafts themselves, described by Firestone as “the cold machines of war.” The Pima Air and Space Museum, which hosted an exhibition of the work, explained that some pieces “addressed the positive and negative associations we each carry towards the difficult history of war, and many spoke more directly to their own individual relationships to this material including memories of parents who were air force or civilian pilots.” Retna’s craft, titled “Warning Shot,” creates an abstracted US flag from an array of repeated symbols encasing the entire plane.

Smaller works in the series, organized by Eric Firestone with curator Carlo McCormick, give a nod to the precedent for the collection; “Nose Jobs” present the (relatively) small cones from the front of planes painted as curious art objects in a similar manner as World War II pilots painted the nose cones of their aircraft.